How do I protect my content?Copyright gives the author(s) of a creative work the exclusive right to display, reproduce, distribute, and financially benefit from the work they create

Although being inspired by an idea is acceptable, it is never acceptable to copy someone else’s expression of an idea. A copyright to an original work exists the moment the work is fixed in a medium. However, registering the copyright provides several advantages. It is in your best interest to protect your copyrighted images yourself by contacting the U.S. Copyright Office or the local copyright office in your area or country

Can I offer my work exclusively to Bigstock?Bigstock does not offer an exclusive program to its contributors. While we appreciate loyalty, you are free to market any materials owned by you, including your submitted content, on any other website (or by any other means), whether they compete with Bigstock or not.

If you have questions about exclusivity and ownership of your content on Bigstock, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with our Contributor Terms of Service and our Contributor Agreement. These terms list your rights and responsibilities as the owner of your work on our site.

2. Uploading Content and Rights for Contributorsa. By uploading Content, you grant Bigstock and its Members the irrevocable non-exclusive, royalty-free right, throughout the world, to use the Content for any purpose including publication, display, modification, sublicensing, and creation of derivative works, or products.

Can Bigstock help me recover lost work?All Bigstock contributors are responsible for backing up their own work, and we strongly recommend that you save all your work on at least one external hard drive and/or cloud storage application. We regret therefore that we cannot replace your work for free if you lose it.

Although downloading your own work is not allowed per our Terms of Service, we can in exceptional cases (such as loss of your work) offer the option of recovering your content with a subscription from our website. Please send us an email at support@bigstockphoto.comand we will send you instructions.

In the case that you download your own work without contacting our staff, your account will risk termination.

How do I delete images?We are here to accommodate your requests to remove images from our collection.

Pleasecontact us with your request that includes the Bigstock image ID numbers (separated by commas if there is more than one image). Also, let us know why you wish to remove the image(s) in case there is another way we can help you.

To prevent abuse of our approval process, we will not remove an image that was approved less than 7 days previous to your request.

Please allow an additional 7 days for images to be fully removed from partner sites.

Please note: We cannot prevent anyone who has already downloaded your image from using it.

How can I add or remove the Extended License option to my approved images?Bigstock's Extended License program is an optional license that can be applied to all, some or none of your images. This license is used by customers who wish to use images for merchandise that will be sold. You can earn up to $29.70 per download under this license. If you would like to add or remove the Extended License option to your already approved images, you can do so by accessing this area from the Upload tab in your account.

How do I change the Descriptions, Keywords, or Categories of content that is already on the site?Go to the Uploads area of your account and click “Approval Status“. All of your images will appear in a column along with their current status.

Go to the ‘View’ box and select ‘Approved Images’.

Locate the image you wish to modify and click the “edit” link.

Make modifications to image descriptions and keywords on the first page of the pop-up window.

To change the category click on the ‘Categories’ tab. Select the appropriate category from the drop-down menus.

You will also be required to provide a brief reason for the changes. It could be as simple as “Grammar/Punctuation correction” or “Adding more relevant keywords”. Each edit you make is logged and reviewed. We may suspend the editing abilities of contributors who continuously make irrelevant edits.

Once you are finished with the image, click the ‘submit changes’ button.

Please make sure that any change you make to this information is accurate, relevant, and appropriate for the image. If we find that you have added unnecessary information or are spamming in the keywords field, we will remove the content immediately. You also risk account suspension or termination for this behavior.

* It can take up to 72 hours for these changes to be reflected in your portfolio.

Rejected images: If your image was rejected by our review team it cannot be edited.

What are the character limits for metadata?There are three areas in the 'Edit & Submit' dialog box allow a maximum of characters to be entered as metadata:

Image Description - 240 character maximum

Keywords - Between 7 and 50 unique words

Note to Reviewers - 100 character maximum

Can I upload my images to other photo agencies or enter my images in contests?Since you have stated by agreeing to the Bigstock Terms of Service that you are the copyright owner of the images you submit to Bigstock, you are free to upload the same images to other stock agencies, enter them into contests, etc.Note: Be sure to read the other agencies Terms of Service as this may not be allowed on their site.

How do l check the status of my images?Images that have been uploaded are sent directly to the 'Edit & Submit' area in your account under 'Uploads' from the left hand side menu. After you submit the content for review, you can check the status by clicking on the 'Approval Status' link under 'Uploads' where you can access the images as well.